[Challenge] The Monotype Challenge v8, Tera Edition

[Explorer of Time]

(I don't know whether it is allowed to sign up more than one challenges. I hope it's OK.)

Absolutely OK, I'm technically doing two at once myself. (Though I only play my secondary challenge when I'm away from home, and I work from home, so it's very slow.)

EDIT:

Game(s): Mega Moemon FireRed

Do you, by any chance, know where to find documentation for this hack? I'm not interested in playing it myself but I want to double-check to see if it needs any game-specific rules for anything. (e.g. moves/abilities/fakemon that interact with types in ways I need to account for.) It's fine to still play it if there isn't documentation, though.

 

[Sakura_H]

Do you, by any chance, know where to find documentation for this hack? I'm not interested in playing it myself but I want to double-check to see if it needs any game-specific rules for anything. (e.g. moves/abilities/fakemon that interact with types in ways I need to account for.) It's fine to still play it if there isn't documentation, though.

There're some documents included inside the folder for downloading in their official page in PokeMMO. But it's just some changelog, bug reports and pokemon (moemon) encounters list. I don't think they are really related to what you are looking for. You may have a look if you want.

Spoiler:

These documents (some are odder ver.) are also linked in PokeHarbor if you just want to read it online. But some may consider PokeHarbor as 'unsafe' so the only way may be downloading their official file.

There are no new moves/abilities interacting with types from my experience. I don't think there's any official or fan made wiki for the moves for each pokemon. For reference, they said the move sets are mainly based on GEN 6 with a few modifications. I've just checked with the moves and it should not have any problems with the monotype rules.

The game doesn't really get 'fakemons' but some 'event pokemon'. You can get it by entering the code but you need to finish the 7th Gym battle (Blaine) first. Most of them are just shiny with different sprites, but a few of them are said to be 'stronger' in official promotion. I don't know their BSTs yet and the BSTs are not mentioned officially either. Should all of them be 'completely banned as gift pokemon', or follows the legendary rules if they are BST 600+ or BST 540+?

 

[Explorer of Time]

The game doesn't really get 'fakemons' but some 'event pokemon'. You can get it by entering the code but you need to finish the 7th Gym battle (Blaine) first. Most of them are just shiny with different sprites, but a few of them are said to be 'stronger' in official promotion. I don't know their BSTs yet and the BSTs are not mentioned officially either. Should all of them be 'completely banned as gift pokemon', or follows the legendary rules if they are BST 600+ or BST 540+?

I'm going to go ahead and ban the event Pokemon, since they seem pretty similar to Nintendo's mystery gifts and those are already banned, even if they give out non-Legendary Pokemon. Other than that, everything seems fine. The docs also mention that Lance uses a Mega Latias, so I'm going to make another note saying it's fine to use a Legendary with its BST or lower after getting all the Gym Badges, though I'm not sure if any of them are even catchable before then.

 

[Smotemotem]

Scarlet Sands - Part 1
I'm playing the vanilla version of the game, this time. One thing that stopped me from doing this challenge on this game earlier, was that I wasn't sure how many Ground-types are available before the first badge. You can get a couple of them (Diglett & Wooper-P) before going to the academy for the first time. Then after the prelude wraps, you can explore most of the map and pick up basically every non-legendary ground type. I did that, and grabbed as many fast travel points as I could, along the way. This left me with a team of Pokemon that were way too high level, mostly mid-20's to mid-30's. But fortunately, you can breed immediately in Paldea. I picked out a team of six partners to start this journey, and I bred for a level 1 version of each one. The name scheme this time will be "book genres".

I did a little grinding through the trainer battles along the roads around Los Platos & Cortondo, and I attempted the first gym battle. I have a Numel, and two other Pokemon that know "Ancient Power," so I thought this would be a gimme. However, I found Katy's Teddiursa to be a titan. I was obliterated on my first try. I had to go grind out one more level for my team, and I had to use items to buff and very careful strats to debuff when we got to the Teddiursa fight. I didn't expect Katy to have so many ways to steal & eat berries from my team, and the fight got way harder when Teddiursa landed a lucky crit. However, my Numel held on with one HP and was able to both Incinerate the berry that Teddiursa stole, and to deliver a fatal blow. A big obstacle I'm going to face on this run is honoring the clause regarding Tera types. I hadn't realized what a crutch it was to Terastallize and push a huge STAB move, and how hard it will be to not Tera in response to an opponent's Tera. As with all challenge runs, this is going to help me to appreciate complexities to the game and its world that I had failed to appreciate before.

P.S. I caught a full-odds shiny Finnizen while looking for Shellos

Spoiler: Badge One Team

Thriller - Sandygast (M) Lv. 11
Water Compaction
- Absorb
- Sand Tomb
- Ancient Power
- Astonish

Mystery - Toedscool (M) Lv. 12
Mycelium Might
- Stun Spore
- Mud Slap
- Bullet Seed
- Poison Powder

Fantasy - Gible (M) Lv. 11
Sand Veil
- Tackle
- Sand Tomb
- Sand Attack

Romance - Numel (M) Lv. 12
Oblivious
- Ember
- Tackle
- Bulldoze
- Incinerate

Satire - Shellos-W (F) Lv. 11
Storm Drain
- Recover
- Water Pulse
- Ancient Power
- Mud-Slap

True Crime - Sandile (M) Lv. 13
Intimidate
- Scary Face
- Power Trip
- Bite
- Sand Tomb

 

[Sakura_H]

Mega Moemon FireRed (Standard)
Game Mastery
1st type Mono-Flying: 1st Update (Pallet Town - Rock Tunnel)

OK, let's get started.

I don't know how long do I need for the all 18 types for Game Mastery. As I start the challenge in 2024, so maybe I finish all in next Olympic Year 2028. (I hope I won't.) Well, I enjoyed playing Moemon anyway, so I will finish all the challenges anyway.

Spoiler: Some rules before I go

There are a few rules/clauses being added to my game and applied to all mono runs in Game Mastery:
1. No Item Rules: No items are allowed during battles except held items. It includes all trainers battles and wild battles. Using items outside battles is allowed.
2. Set Rules: The battle style will change to 'Set'.
3. Nickname Rules: All pokemon (moemon here) are needed to nicknamed.

The following are not really rules but 'play styles' I will take:
1. No hunting on IVs and nature. Hunting on abilities are allowed.
- It means multiple catching of the same pokemon for IVs and natures are not allowed, but may do for abilities.
- The game itself was not very hard and I consider these runs as 'causal run', so I won't spend to many time on hunting for perfect IVs or natures.
- As the ability may affect the team's strategy (such as Pelipper's Keen Eye and Drizzle will make the team extremely different), aiming for abilities are fine to me.

2. Avoid using the same pokemon in different runs for the whole game mastery challenge.
- e.g. If I use Venusaur in mono-grass run, I should avoid using it in mono-poison run later on.
- The main reason is I may make a photo of 18 runs with pokemon (moemon) for Hall of Fame. I hope I can show using all different 18x6=108 pokemon in total.
- Due to limited encounters in early game, it may not be a strict rule. But, at least, I will try to achieve it for Hall of Fame.
- Regional Forms are considered as different pokemon here.
- Different pokemon evolved from the same species are considered as different pokemon here.
e.g. All species of Eeveelution are considered as different pokemon, including eevee itself.
e.g. Wingull and Pelipper are also considered as different pokemon, so Pelipper can be used in mono-flying and wingull can be used in mono-water.

3. Using multiple pokemon of the same species or under same evolution in the same run is not allowed.
- I know multiple pokemon of same species are allowed in classic rules of monotype challenge. This rule is just make my runs harder.
- As I allow myself to use devolution forms in different runs, I just ban myself for multiple pokemon as 'punishment' for making silly mistakes.
- e.g. Multiple Bellossoms in the same team are not allowed. Using Bellossom and Gloom in the same team are also not allowed in the same mono-grass run. Using Bellossom and Vilepume are in the same team are also not allowed in the same mono-grass run.
- Different regional forms (or just different forms) and their evolution/devolution are also considered as the same 'evolution family'. e.g. Dugtrio and Alolan Dugtrio must not be used in the same team for mono-ground run. (But can be used in different run, as dugtrio in mono-ground and alolan dugtrio in mono-steel.)
- Exception: Shedinja is considered different from Nincada family due to its 'special evolution' method. Shedinja can be used with Ninjask/Nincada in mono-bug run.

Thank you for reading such dull and boring rules if you've read up to here.
I'll get start soon.

Spoiler: Main Progress

0. Planning

I think flying is one of the easiest type for monotype challenge for most games, as there are a lot of choices of flying pokemon and flying also got a few weakness.

The offensive not effective type: Rock, Electric, Steel
The defensive weakness: Rock, Electric, Ice

Well, the main concern is electric as it's very common in game and most flying are weak to electric (both offensive and defensive). I think my team must get a Flying/Ground type, where gliscor seems my only choice. (I forgot whether Landorus is in the game. I think no but it's legendary anyway, so no consideration at this moment.) The other plan is using a steel/flying against ice and rock, and skarmory seems the only choice. For other moemon, well, no plan at all. But I will try to use some that are seldom used or never used.

1. Brock

I first choose Charmander as my starter as it got flying type later. (Well, I probably won't use it for Elite four as I probably need it for my mono-fire run.) There're a lot of flying pokemon from Pallet Town to Pweter City. My current team member was Charmander, Taillow, Butterfree and Skiploom (evloved from Hoppip). Brock was easy anyway even he got Lileep. Skiploom and Butterfree are easy to battle with him.

2. Misty

I got Exp Share after beating Brock and my training became much easier. Along the Route 3 and Mt Moon, I caught Yanma, Zubat, Noibat and Woobat (so many bats…). I may want to use Yanma as my Flying/Bug and I put my Butterfree into my box. (TBH Butterfree might be better but I really use too many times Butterfree all in my past games) I may use Noibat later but currently it's too weak before evolution. Well, I just keep it in box also.

My Current Team: Charmeleon, Taillow, Yanma, Skiploom, Woobat, Zubat

I don't know whether Misty was hard to beat, buy what I do is all depends on Skiploom. Luckily my Taillow also evloved to Swellow in the Trainer Battle inside her Gym. This battle was not too bad.

3. Lt. Surge

I need to find Bill first before heading to Vermilion City and SS Anne. Green appears in Route 24 and … well, he was not hard. And my pokemon evolved successfully, especially Zubat evolved to Golbat and Crobat due to high friendship. (That shows I really love her to get a high friendship. )

My Current Team: Charmeleon, Swellow, Yanma, Jumpluff, Swoobat, Crobat

And…… TBH, I found Yanma too weak before evolution. I think I may need a place for my HM slave so I probably save Yanma into box first. The game was somehow GEN6 design so HM slaves are still needed. I really need a Cut&Flash HM Slave from now on. And there are really nothing special alongside to Anne SS even no new flying pokemon. After getting HM01 Cut on SS Anne, it's time to battle one of the hard Gym leader battle Lt. Surge.

Electric is one of my weakness and I don't get glisor right now. What I depend on was…… Jumpluff again. Luckily, Crobat and Swoobat was fast enough which can make the battle easier. (I know I can use charmeleon, but it's not flying type yet. I don't want to depend on her too much especially Gym leader battle.)

3.5 After St. Lurge
After battling St. Lurge, I need to go to Route 9 and 10 as well as Rock Tunnel. I need to focus on catching new pokemon right now as wingull appear in Route 9 and Archen appear in Rock Tunnel. (Murkrow are also here on Route 9 but I got no plan to use her yet.) I replace Wingull (Pelipper) with Swellow here.

Spoiler: My Current Team

Jumpluff (Karen) Lv33
Ability: Infiltrator
-Bullet Seed
-Sleep Powder
-Aerial Ace
-Confusion

Pelipper (Yayoi) Lv32
Ability: Drizzle
-Scald
-Shock Wave
-Roost
-Wing Attack

Crobat (Tamaki) Lv33
Ability: Inner Focus
-Acrobatics
-Bite
-Leech Life
-Confuse Ray

Swoobat (Tomoka) Lv34
Ability: Inner Focus
-Calm Mind
-Confusion
-Shock Wave
-Air Slash

Charmeleon (Megumi) Lv32
Ability: Blaze
-Flame Burst
-Metal Claw
-Dig
-Aerial Ace

And a HM Slave …

 

[Smotemotem]

Scarlet Sands - Part 2
I'm a little underlevelled, still. I thought I could sweep Titan Klawf, but it managed to KO about half my team in phase one, once its armor cracked. Fortunately, we were able to wear it down with chip damage. Its obsession with using "Block" on every swap-in allowed for some easy hits. Phase two was much easier. Arven's Shellder was hitting hard, and Klawf just ignored Mystery, while he plugged away with Bullet Seeds.

Brassius was next. Petilil's Sleep Powder kept Romance from 2HKO'ing the setup mons, but once we got to the ace, Trulywoodo, it wasn't much of a challenge. True Crime intimidated it and got in a quick Bite, before being run over by Trailblaze. Romance had just enough HP to survive two hits from Trailblaze, making the speed advantage on Trulywoodo useless. I just had to Incinerate twice, Soda Pop for healing, and Incinerate another time or two as needed.

Bombirdier whooped me on my first try, so I fought some trainers and ran some raid dens to level a bit. My strat here was to start each phase with True Crime's Intimidate + Scary Face, then swap to a Pokemon that could spam Ancient Power. Thriller was the damage-dealer for phase one and Satire filled this role for phase two. Fortunately, the rain came in phase two, so Torment didn't hurt us at all. Four badges in hand. No Evos.

Spoiler: Badge Four Team

Thriller - Sandygast (M) Lv. 18
Water Compaction
- Mega Drain
- Sand Tomb
- Ancient Power
- Astonish

Mystery - Toedscool (M) Lv. 18
Mycelium Might
- Mega Drain
- Mud Slap
- Bullet Seed
- Poison Powder

Fantasy - Gible (M) Lv. 18
Sand Veil
- Metal Claw
- Bulldoze
- Sand Attack
- Dragon Breath

Romance - Numel (M) Lv. 18
Oblivious
- Ember
- Tackle
- Bulldoze
- Incinerate

Satire - Shellos-W (F) Lv. 19
Storm Drain
- Recover
- Water Pulse
- Ancient Power
- Mud-Slap

True Crime - Sandile (M) Lv. 19
Intimidate
- Scary Face
- Torment
- Bite
- Sand Tomb

 

[Sakura_H]

Mega Moemon FireRed (Standard)
Game Mastery
1st type Mono-Flying: 2nd Update (Rocket Tunnel - Koga)

The game ran extremely fast. One of the reasons was that I'm really familiar with the Moemon FireRed game progress (and also FireRed progress). The game was still fine if I got a little bit under-level, so I can just go rush for them game. Repels may be used in some cases, especially for the location without any flying pokemon. As I got the VS Seeker already, I just tend to use it for level up if I really need it.

Spoiler: Main Progress

4. Erika & Rocket Game Center & Pokemon Tower
Well, Erika's battle was easy, probably the easiest battle in the whole game. Mono-Crobat can manage to finish the battle.

The rocket game center was a little bit harder than the Erika, but it's still not hard. I also evloved Charizard here. My pokemon easily got poison from Rocket's pokemon, I really need to get them back to pokemon center quite often.

My Current Team: Charizard, Pelipper, Archen, Jumpluff, Swoobat, Crobat

4.5 Planning before 5th Gym

The game allowed me to go to Saffron City or Fushcia City as my 5th Gym. Well, I thought the game assigned route should be Saffron City first as Sabrina's pokémon level was lower than that of Koga, but I needed to catch more pokemon first. So I designed ran down to Fuschia first along Route 16, 17 and 18. (I will also go back to Route 12-15 later.)

I knew I must get a gliscor and a skarmory for countering electric, ice and rock. At this moment, Jumpluff almost finished her main purpose to counter electric to 1x, and it should be replaced by gliscor. Jumpluff was also a little too weak right now with low attack and sp attack. But how about Skarmory?

Here, I decided to put Charizard into my box as I probably need it for my mono-fire run. (Refer to my rule for not using same Pokemon for Hall of Fame) To be honest, Charizard as Flying/Fire has little use for countering flying's weakness, but she should be more useful in mono-fire team as flying is 0x against ground attack.

Skarmory was caught in Route 18. Gligar was caught in Clear Forest (a new location at Route 15) and evolved by Razor fang to Gliscor.

My current team became as follows:
My Current Team: Pelipper, Archeops(evolved), Swoobat, Crobat, Skarmory, Gliscor

5. Koga
Before battling with Koga, I went through Route 12-15 to level up all my pokemon as well as had a look in Safari Zone. Well, Safari Zone got nothing really useful to me. My main aim here was just gold teeth and HM03.

Koga's Gym was not difficult, except Koga. His pokemon was around lv45-48 (What!?) and his trainer was just around lv35. My pokemon here was just around lv40 which made me a harsh fight. My idea was using Swoobat and Gliscor to battle against his poison and… they are all fainted. And I used Skarmory as poison was 0x against steel and …. she got fainted.

!!!!!!!!!!!

Here, I gave my MVP to Archeops with ability Hustle. (Yes, the game changed her ability). I must say she was extremely powerful now with Hustle if I got luck for her accuracy. Hustle made her attack become extremely high and just an arcobatic can killed Koga's whole team. Ok, anyway, I passed his challenge.

5.5 Planning, again (Be careful, it's a long long story.)

I got some problems with my team here, where Crobat seems to get nothing to do with her new team members Gliscor and Skarmory. Her speed was very high but… well, I must say, Poison/Flying was not a good offensive types here, and her attack was a little bit low compared to Archeops. Her defensive ability for both types and stats was also low compared to Gliscor and Skarmory. Other concern was I probably need her for mono-poison run for resisting ground attack (similar to that of Charizard).

I thought I may need to replace her to someone else, but… let me show some of my preference.

Charizard (again): I may take her out again, but I think my mono-fire need her more.

Zapdos: Zapdos can use up my Legendary place for mono-flying team. Actually Zapdos is a good choice for countering electric attack, but I still need to think my mono-electric run later, as electric team is extremely afraid of ground attack. If I use Zapdos here, I may need to use Emolga there. Oh, no.

Dragonite: Actually I think Dragonite was a good choice for countering electric. (I don't mind Ice as x2 and x4 made no difference actually, mostly just made the pokemon fainted directly.) And I don't think I need dragonite in mono-dragon later. But I already got a physical attacker Archeops in my team, another physical attacker Dragonite might not be the best choice here.

Altaria: Yes, it's a good choice besides dragonite as another Flying/Dragon. Wait, I can't use Mega as it lost flying type… If no mega-evolution, she was too weak…

Pinsir (Mega): Yes, Pinsir might be a good choice for mega evolution with bug/flying and ability aerilate. And her great attack stats can dominate my team… Wait, there's no Pinsirite in the game!?

OK, sorry but that's all what I think and consider. My thoughts had changed from Legendary to Mega-Evolution for finding a good flying pokemon with high sp attack… Wait, I found I missed out someone.

Pidgeot, with mega-evolution.

Mega Pidgeot actually fit what I want. A flying pokemon with high BST and high sp attack, and the most important, I absolutely don't need Mega Pidgeot for my other runs. Mega Evolution for Mono-normal run are probably Mega Kangaskhan or Mega Lopunny. Um… I never used Mega Pidgeot before even in online battle in previous generation. Maybe I should give her a try here.

Spoiler: My Current Team

Pelipper (Yayoi) Lv44
Ability: Drizzle
-Shock Wave
-Surf
-Ice Beam
-Roost

Archeops (Akane) Lv 41
Ability: Hustle
-Acrobatics
-Rock Slide
-Crunch
-Double Team

Swoobat (Tomoka) Lv42
Ability: Inner Focus
-Calm Mind
-Psychic
-Air Cutter
-Shock Wave

Gliscor (Momoko) Lv43
Ability: Poison Heal
-Acrobatics
-Dig
-Night Slash
-U-turn

Skarmory (Kotoha) Lv40
Ability: Keen Eye
-Stealth Rock
-Fly
-Iron Head
-

Pidgey (Hibiki) Lv3
Ability:
-Tackle
-
-
-

 

[Smotemotem]

Scarlet Sands - Part3
Longer post this time, so two spoiler tags.

Spoiler: Gameplay

I've relied on buffs & debuffs to make up for the level gap, but it didn't help much in the Giacomo fight. Pawniard would get stronger if I tried to Intimidate or Bulldoze, so I ended up leading with Romance, and burning it down with fire-type moves. The Starmobile segment was a lot slower and a lot more item-spammy than I would like. Metal Sound + Snarl would OHKO just about everything on my team, so it forced a swap every time Revavroom connected with Metal Sound. But with enough patience, and enough Super Potions, and enough Revives, we eventually wore him down.

I was excited for the Iona fight, because I thought the type advantage would make it a breeze. However, the Bellibolt had crazy bulk, and I didn't have a way to get "levitate" off her Mismagius. Easy fight, but again, very tedious. Romance learned Amnesia after the rival Nemona fight, which was very helpful. I was able to Amnesia twice, Ember whenever he could break through confusion, and eventually get a burn on Mismagius. That was game over for Iona.

Speaking of Nemona, her Quaxwell hits hard, but that Intimidate ability on True Crime is still coming in clutch. That was the only real heavy-hitter on her team.

Off to titan Orthworm! Finally, I found my pushover fight. I was nodding off during phase one and didn't keep good notes, but I do remember hitting it with Bulldoze and finding out it was immune to Ground moves. So for phase two, I led with Romance, and scored a Burn off of Lava Plume on turn one. Arven's Toedscool hit it with a confuse ray. Then we just took turns hitting it with Hex & Incinerate, until it fainted.

After a quick trip to the Pokestop, I challenged Mela's base. Her Torkoal was a serious sweeper, under the harsh sunlight. True Crime was able to stall it out for a few turns by digging, before being run over by a fatal Flame Wheel. Romance dropped in to finish it up with a couple of Bulldoze hits. For the Starmobile phase, I got into a groove with Satire & Romance. I would swap one in, hit a couple of times with a Water or Ground move, and then I would Super Potion as needed. If Revavroom ever debuffed them, I would swap to the other one immediately. Those debuffs are no joke in these boss fights.

Kofu was up next, and I was worried about him, but it turned out okay. After an Intimidate or two, Satire could sit there and tank Wugtrio & Crabominable pretty well. Then it was just a matter of chipping away with Mud-Slap and Ancient Power, and healing as needed. We're finally starting to outspeed some of the big boys. Also, Fantasy evolved!

Spoiler: Badge Nine Team

Thriller - Sandygast (M) Lv. 25
Water Compaction
- Mega Drain
- Bulldoze
- Ancient Power
- Chilling Water

Mystery - Toedscool (M) Lv. 27
Mycelium Might
- Mega Drain
- Mud Shot
- Bullet Seed
- Poison Powder

Fantasy - Gible (M) Lv. 25
Sand Veil
- Metal Claw
- Bulldoze
- Sand Attack
- Dragon Breath

Romance - Numel (M) Lv. 26
Oblivious
- Lava Plume
- Amnesia
- Earth Power
- Trailblaze

Satire - Shellos-W (F) Lv. 26
Storm Drain
- Body Slam
- Water Pulse
- Ancient Power
- Mud-Slap

True Crime - Sandile (M) Lv. 27
Intimidate
- Scary Face
- Torment
- Crunch
- Dig

 

[Smotemotem]

Scarlet Sands - Part 4
Finished up my run on Scarlet! But I do need to ask for a ruling from @Explorer of Time near the end…

Spoiler: Gameplay

The Atticus fight was frustrating. Most of my team as still unevolved, and it was a pain to have to use so many antidotes to stave off the constant poison spam. Super long fight, but eventually the whole team worked together to scrap the Starmobile. Mostly, Thriller tanked the damage and Bulldozed every second or third turn between heals. Fantasy got the KO. I ran around and did some exp grinding after this fight, because I'm tired of being stuck on item spam mode. I was able to get the first evo on everybody except Thriller.

The Larry fight went better than expected. I forgot that he pretty much locks in on Facade, or I would have made sure Thriller didn't get KO'd earlier. The Dudunsparce was actually our biggest challenge here. Mystery finally had a chance to shine, as he had incredible bulk after Terastallizing. He's one of the handful of Ground-Tera mons on my team. It hasn't been an especially helpful tactic in the first half of the game.

The next Nemona fight went well, too. True Crime was a good counter to Lycanroc. Fantasy was outgunned by Goomy, but took it to death's door. Mystery made quick work of Pawmo. Then Quaquaval was helpless to fight off Satire.

Getting ready for Montenevera, I realized I could make the run to the north shore, and survive for a few turns against a Blissey. So I finally have a quick way to farm EXP. I ate my encounter sandwich to spawn Blissey, led with mons that could induce status effects, and started chucking Pokeballs. I stuck with it until Thriller evolved, and True Crime evolved to its final form, and then I headed for the gym. I'm finally on-par, level-wise, so this fight was super easy, barely an inconvenience. True Crime and Fantasy led, and fired off Earthquake & Bulldoze on turn one. This KO'd Bannette and took Mimikyu to half HP, but it also made Fantasy vulnerable to a revenge kill. True Crime started chomping the replacement ghosts, and Fantasy took Mimikyu down with Metal Claw before he passed out. I subbed in Satire just to have a bulky partner beside my Krookodile, and it only took one more turn to secure a victory.

I've been eager to fight Titan Great Tusk, and that was our next target. True Crime and Thriller both have ways to lower its attack stat, and Thriller is also immune to its STAB Brick Break, so this was an easy fight. Ironically, this is the Pokemon that I've been planning to replace Thriller with. He just hasn't pulled his weight so far, and I want to try out a new monster. So let's add Great Tusk to the team. His name is Memoir.

Moving on, we made it to the Alfornada gym. True Crime continues to be a powerhouse. He can Crunch, Gunk Shot, and Tera + Earthquake, and his speed and attack are great. I had the foresight to send him into Tera Ground before the Moonblast hit him, so he swept this encounter.

Looking ahead, I could see some very tough type matchups on the horizon, so I wanted to do a little more grinding. I did that for a sandwich-length, evolved Fantasy, and headed for the last titan. I think things will snowball pretty fast from here. True Crime could Outrage through 90% of Dondozo's health bar, before I had to swap him out for a revenge kill from Satire. The Outrage, alone, was enough to kill Tatsugiri. I went to the Ice gym to finish off that arc, next. Grusha let me set up a five-hit Rollout from Memoir, and that final blow landed on his ace, Altaria.

Able to traverse mountains easier, we headed off to face Team Star Eri. These last two Star bases make me nervous, because I don't have much to counteract fighting or fairy types. I ended up letting Memoir do a lot of the heavy-lifting, but Romance was vital in the second half of the Starmobile fight, as well. It was just a matter of hitting repeatedly with STAB ground moves, and getting a lucky final blow from a Quick Claw boost.

Fairy base was my final badge. Half of my team has a weakness here, but we have decent bulk, plus our level advantage. The strat here was to lead with my GFW core and only swap to the other guys after the front-line was worn down. I did have to swap into True Crime for the final Gunk Shot.

Titan Finale - We fought Arven, and Memoir could take on just about everything on his team single-handed. I had to sub in True Crime at the very end, to Terastalize and deal with Mabostiff.

Team Star Finale - Significant level bump here, so I'm glad my team was around 60. The Clavell and Cassiopeia fights were fun. I liked being able to rotate through the whole team, to finally face off against some balanced parties.

Paldea League Finale - Rika was a neat fight; her team was like a weaker version of my team. Poppy was "like stealing candy from a baby"; the type matchups were heavily skewed in my favor. Larry was a much bigger challenge the second time around, but fortunately Staraptor beats itself half to death with Brave Bird. Hassel was much easier than expected, as I had a good bit of dragon coverage on my team. Geeta was basically just a matter of spamming Close Combat on Memoir. Nemona had some neat tricks, but the team had good ways to play around them. Fantasy got an OHKO with Dig on Lycanroc, and got a good 95% swipe into Goodra with Dragon Claw, but then he was frozen. I swapped in Memoir and broke down the next three Pokemon, but Quaquaval was too much for him. Mystery got one good hit with Power Whip, and Satire finished up with Earth Power.

Finally, it was time to challenge Sada. This is my third run on SV, and this was the easiest this fight has ever been for me. I don't know if that's because I was so familiar with my team, or because keeping roughly the same team from start to finish netted lots of EVs, or if a ground team is just generally good against Sada. Mystery and Satire sat this fight out. Romance opened the fight, burned down Slither Wing and got in one good hit on Brute Bonnet. Memoir subbed in to finish off Brute Bonnet and Scream Tail. Sandy Shocks packed a punch, but True Crime was able to beat it and to follow-up with a KO on Flutter Mane. I thought Fantasy could beat Roaring Moon, but it was just too fast. Fantasy got in a good hit, but I had to revive Memoir for the killing blow.

My MVP was a tight race this time. Romance and True Crime probably had the most KOs of the bunch. True Crime is a solid physical attacker, with a great ability in Intimidate. Romance had fire typing, which covers two major weaknesses of the ground type. After those two, Memoir was obviously great. It's basically legendary, and having STAB ground & fighting moves threatens a load of Pokemon. Satire, Mystery & Fantasy all had their moments, but they also had some 4x weaknesses, and the level-up move pool on Garchomp was a little disappointing. Least valuable Pokemon was Thriller. Too slow, evolved too late, and Water Compaction is too niche of an ability.

I had fun on this run, but I still think Gen IX has some flaws that are hard to look past. I wish they had implemented some form of scaling, as I think that would have fixed my biggest gripes. It doesn't feel truly "open world" to me, if there's still fixed level progression with the badge challenges. It results in a game where you either follow a guide to make sure you're facing monsters around your level, or you wander blindly into encounters that are way over or way under your level, which isn't a very satisfying feeling.

Now the elephant in the room…I reread the rules to see if I had broken a rule with my two picnics, and I just don't know. Two picnics equals 40 points, which is 1/3 of the way to the cutoff. Most of my team was over 180 points according to the friendship checker, prior to the Sada fight. Memoir was a little lower. I'm not sure when we got there or what put us over. I feel like the vast majority of my points were from regular gameplay. The bigger advantage of the sandwiches had to be the ability to grind Blissey for 30 minutes straight. I only saw a Pokemon live at 1HP two-to-four times in the whole run. A couple were very early on, when the team was probably in the LV 20-30 range. One was during the fight with Clavell, and I'm certain this last one was a friendship activation. Every time, it was on Romance. I'm not sure if this disqualifies my run…

Spoiler: Final Team

Memoir - Great Tusk Lv. 66
Protosynthesis
- Ice Spinner
- Close Combat
- Knock Off
- Earthquake

Mystery - Toedscool (M) Lv. 66
Mycelium Might
- Power Whip
- Earth Power
- Hex
- Dazzling Gleam

Fantasy - Garchomp (M) Lv. 66
Sand Veil
- Metal Claw
- Dig
- Crunch
- Dragon Claw

Romance - Camerupt (M) Lv. 66
Magma Armor
- Lava Plume
- Rock Slide
- EarthQuake
- Trailblaze

Satire - Gastrodon-W (F) Lv. 66
Storm Drain
- Body Slam
- Muddy Water
- Ancient Power
- Earth Power

True Crime - Krookodile (M) Lv. 66
Intimidate
- Outrage
- Gunk Shot
- Crunch
- Earthquake

 

[Explorer of Time]

I reread the rules to see if I had broken a rule with my two picnics, and I just don't know. Two picnics equals 40 points, which is 1/3 of the way to the cutoff. Most of my team was over 180 points according to the friendship checker, prior to the Sada fight. Memoir was a little lower. I'm not sure when we got there or what put us over. I feel like the vast majority of my points were from regular gameplay. The bigger advantage of the sandwiches had to be the ability to grind Blissey for 30 minutes straight. I only saw a Pokemon live at 1HP two-to-four times in the whole run. A couple were very early on, when the team was probably in the LV 20-30 range. One was during the fight with Clavell, and I'm certain this last one was a friendship activation. Every time, it was on Romance. I'm not sure if this disqualifies my run…

This doesn't disqualify your run completely, but it does automatically convert it to Free Mode, since friendship bonuses are allowed there.

In the future, if you want to avoid friendship bonuses in Gen 8 or 9, you can reduce your Pokemon's friendship by taking damage from wild Pokemon and repeatedly using herbal medicine to heal them. Friendship bonuses don't make your run Free Mode unless they actually trigger in a trainer battle, even if you go over the limit for a little while from a picnic.

 

[Smotemotem]

Thank you! That's a very fair compromise. There's one more region where I haven't done a Mono-Ground run, so lemme give this a try in Hisui. I'll go over to the discussion thread and see if there are any special considerations I need to be aware of.

User: Smotemotem
Type: Ground
Game(s): PLA
Challenge Type: Ultimate
Standard Mode: Standard

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

Wait. I wasn't aware of this rule because I've only done Gen 3 monotype challenges. You have to use herbal medicine on your Pokemon in Gen 7, 8, and 9 "Standard Mode"? Are you serious? I knew the Gen 7 Kanto games were easy, but it just feels wrong lowering the "friendship" stat because of this.

 

[Explorer of Time]

Wait. I wasn't aware of this rule because I've only done Gen 3 monotype challenges. You have to use herbal medicine on your Pokemon in Gen 7, 8, and 9 "Standard Mode"? Are you serious? I knew the Gen 7 Kanto games were easy, but it just feels wrong lowering the "friendship" stat because of this.

Specifically SwSh and SV only, since friendship gives game-breaking bonuses for high scores in these games, and it's impossible to raise friendship in either game to the point where Pokemon get these bonuses without using picnics, friendship berries, or Pokemon Camp. LG:PE and BDSP are both exempt from this rule because its Pokemon are too difficult to keep under the limit because of how its friendship mechanics work, though I still recommend using herbal medicine in the latter where possible.

Gen 6 and 7 used Affection, which was measured differently from Friendship and unlowerable without save editing even with herbal medicine, and only increased by using Pokemon Amie or Pokemon Refresh.

These rules were carried over all the way from the previous incarnation of the thread, with the exception of the updates to account for SV.

 

[Smotemotem]

Re: Friendship - I only have myself to blame for not doing better research, but I wish I understood the mechanic better, before it was too late. It's practically guaranteed that you'll hit the threshold from regular play, and the game incentivizes using sandwiches for lots of different things. So if you don't specifically know to never make a sandwich, it's easy to cross the threshold by mistake. I was thinking it was still an affection mechanic like in the 3DS games, and that washing was what raised it. I was wrong. This is not a criticism of the rules on the challenge thread. This is a criticism of the SV gameplay mechanics. Anyway, onto the new run.

Pokemon Legends: Earth Plate, Pt 1

Spoiler: Gameplay

This is a weird game to blog, because the structure is so different, and because this game really emphasized exploration & catching over battling. So far it doesn't feel like a drastically different experience playing monotype vs playing the regular way, because of the scarcity of trainer battles.

In true DPP fashion, you spend an hour or two in tutorials and dialog, before you have much freedom to roam in this game. Even then, the world will open very slowly. I think the slow pacing is justified, but it means that I was gated off from a ground-type Pokemon for the first trainer battle of the game. And I was almost gated out from it for the second fight, except I checked every single ore vein until I found one that was shaking, right at the edge of my explorable space. It was reachable by Pokeball toss, and I was able to grab a Graveller for my starting Pokemon. Small problem - It's level 26, so it doesn't like to listen. I used it for the second and third mandatory battles, just so I could say I used a ground type in these fights.

Of course, after the Mia fight, I was able to get into a zone that had Burmy and a family of Geodudes, at reasonable levels. I was also able to quickly get my second star, so I could use my Graveler normally. I'm naming my party members after types of art - fine art, performance art, etc.

The trainer fights have been few and far between. Sculpture (my Graveler) is really my only Pokemon that was in fighting shape before the Kleavor encounter. Lian's Goomy was plowed over by a single Bulldoze. Irida scared me when she pulled out a Glaceon, but Sculpture hung on and knocked it down with Rock Slide. I had forgotten the mechanics of fighting the Nobles, so I actually didn't manage to stun Kleavor and bring out my monsters in this fight. I just chipped it down by chucking the poultices.

With Crimson Mirelands open, I did a ton of exploration, and got my third star. I managed to grab a Hippowdon, a Teddiursa, an Onix and a Rhydon. I was also able to evolve my Burmy and my Graveller. I fought Volo, Coin & Ursaluna, but all of those fights just boiled down to spamming Bulldoze on Sculpture and revenge killing with another teammate if needed. I'm hoping the later fights actually require some strategy. I remember the endgame stuff being hard at least…

Spoiler: Crimson Mirelands Team

Music - Hippowdon (F) Lv. 35
- Bite
- Mud Bomb
- Crunch
- High Horsepower

Sculpture - Golem (F) Lv. 32
- Mud-Slap
- Iron Defense
- Rock Slide
- Bulldoze

Painting - Teddiursa (F) Lv. 28
- Baby-Doll Eyes
- Bulldoze
- Slash
- Play Rough

Architecture - Rhyhorn (M) Lv. 27
- Bulldoze
- Rock Smash
- Stealth Rock
- Rock Slide

Theatre - Wormadam (F) Lv. 28
- Struggle Bug
- Earth Power

Metalwork - Onix (F) Lv. 27
- Rollout
- Tackle
- Bulldoze
- Rock Slide

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

"Oh!"

...and all I could say was "Oh"

[Lyrics courtesy of Weird Al Yankovic's "Trapped in a Drive-Thru"]

 

[Explorer of Time]

I only have myself to blame for not doing better research, but I wish I understood the mechanic better, before it was too late. It's practically guaranteed that you'll hit the threshold from regular play, and the game incentivizes using sandwiches for lots of different things. So if you don't specifically know to never make a sandwich, it's easy to cross the threshold by mistake. I was thinking it was still an affection mechanic like in the 3DS games, and that washing was what raised it. I was wrong. This is not a criticism of the rules on the challenge thread. This is a criticism of the SV gameplay mechanics.

I understand. I've rewritten the friendship-related rules to clarify the point about Sandwiches, so I'll go ahead and grandfather your run back into Standard Mode since the friendship bonuses didn't affect your run too much. I highly recommend that you use some herbal medicine to get your Pokemon back down to two hearts if you're continuing into the postgame, though.

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

I'm not sure whether or not to say this here because it feels like spam at this point, but I'll post anyway.

I went through Victory Road in my Fighting-type challenge run of Gen 3 Ruby, but my recording software crashed, and I lost the "Rival Wally" battle footage, so I gotta restart from a previous copy of my save file. (Yes, I still plan to cover these challenges on YouTube. No, I don't know when I'll start uploading them.) It actually crashed twice, but it hasn't happened since. I think my laptop just needed to be restarted (as opposed to falling asleep or turning off due to an uncharged battery). I'm not sure when I'll feel up to redo that stuff. It's only about 30-45 minutes of footage that was lost, but it's enough that I just am not ready to continue.

I actually don't think this "Oh, I lost footage, so I gotta use a backup save and act like it didn't happen already" situation has happened before in these monotype challenges, but I have had scares of losing footage, which is why I keep a physical backup and cloud backup of the footage.

I might sign up for a new Gen 3 Kanto run, but like, I don't know what since I already did the Water Monotype for that. I can't do Electric because of Brock. I'm not sure about Poison because of the Psychic-types. The Ground type is mostly represented by Ground- and Rock/Ground-type (aside from the Nidos). Psychic would be too easy. I don't know.

 

[Sakura_H]

Mega Moemon FireRed (Standard)
Game Mastery
1st type Mono-Flying: 3rd Update (Saffron City - Finish)

Yes, I'm back, again. I've finished the Mega Moemon FireRed Mono-Flying already as well as a few parts of my Radical Red Mono-Grass in the past week. I first update my Moemon FireRed first. RR Mono-Grass will be updated later when I got time.

Spoiler: Main Progress

6. Silph Co. & Sabrina
Yes, last time I ended my journey at beating Koga and I should go back to Saffron City to meet Rocket Team at Silph Co. After brainstorming for a little of time, my team members has confirmed with using Mega Pidgeot. I need to train up him a little bit first before heading to Silph Co. The final battle against Giovanni was fair enough as flying type are resistant against his ground attack. After beating Giovanni, I headed to the Gym for Sabrina. Well, most of my pokemon (moemon) are at higher level than hers, so there's no problem here. (Sabrina's highest level pokemon was lv45 and Koga's was lv48…)
Current Team Member: Pelipper, Archeops, Swoobat, Skarmory, Gliscor, Pidgeot(Mega)

7. Blaine
After Sabrina, I may go to Cinnabar Island to meet Blaine. But I decide to go to Power Plant first to find Zapdos. Zapdos was still one of my possible team member, beside Pidgeot (or I may change other members to Zapdos). Anyway, the catching process was interesting with using Gliscor as Zapdos can do nothing damage to Ground type here (her only damage-dealing move was thunderbolt). Anyway, I caught her first and put her into my box.

Next I reach to Cinnabar Island through Route 21. I don't want to go to Seaform Island yet as there's full of Ice pokemon. It's not good to my flying team. The game moved quite smoothly to get the Gym key in Pokemon Mansion. Blaine was not a tough guy to me, especially I got Pelipper. Sorry Blaine.

8. Sevii Islands & Giovanni
After beating Blaine, Bill had called me to reach Sevii Island to help him something. There's nothing special here (the story just run the same as FireRed). But there's got some Alola form of pokemon (moemon) on Sevii Island, which was probably the only place I can find them in the game. Well, it was too late anyway.

After the event with Bill, I reach back Viridian's Gym to battle with Giovanni. I must say, his trainers in the Gym were much tougher than Giovanni himself with my mono-flying team. The trainers there got different types of pokemon other than just Ground type. Anyway, the gym was comparatively easy.

9. Elite Four & Champion
I forgot the level curve in the mainline games FireRed, but here we got a strange curve. Giovanni's highest level pokemon was lv58 and Champion Green got a lv70 pokemon. But Lorelei got the pokemon only at lv54… Maybe the game treated the E4 as 'Green's Trainer'.

Before heading to E4, there's a lot of things to do such as finding out all Legendaries and Mystery in the game. Well, in order to save time, I just head to Seafoam Island and Mt Ember to catch the other two legendary birds. The other reason was I need to train up my pokemon a little bit before heading to Victory Road. The trainers in Victory Road were redesigned with all using 6 pokémon with a theme, which was the best part for the game. Sadly VS Seeker cannot be used in cave, otherwise it's really to battle them again (and gain a lot of experience). After passing the Victory Road, I also trained up my pokemon a little bit to around lv62-64 before entering E4 battles.

I don't spend too much words on the first three for E4 as they are a little bit under level. Lorelei should be difficult as she used ice type, but… OK, move to Lance then. I got Pelipper with Ice Beam here, but, well, Pelipper's sp attack was a little bit low TBH. Archeops was my MVP here as she got Hustle with a high attack and speed stat. If she didn't miss, everything was good. The last battle was against Champion Green. He generally just used the usual pokemon as in the game with a Mega Blastoise lv70, but all his other pokemon was just around lv64-65. I got a difficult battle against with his Blastoise as my pokemon a little under level. Blastoise also got a very high DEF and SP DEF and I got no good moves to battle water type… Yes, it's time for hustle archopes again. I think she won't miss the moves. I will pray for her, and yes….

OK, I beat the game.

10. Post-Game…??
No, I just end here. As it's Game Mastery Challenge, I may continue to post-game for some of my favourite types and teams. Well, flying is one of the type I like, but I won't start post-game here anyway.

Spoiler: Hall of Fame

Spoiler: Some General Comments about Mono-Flying

-It's a fun run and it's an easy run actually. Flying may be the best type to start with for Game Mastery with mostly dual types pokemon, as well as a lots of choices for flying pokemon.
- MVP: Archeops (Hustle). I must say it is a little bit too OVERPOWER for a BST 567 pokemon getting an ability Hustle. Luckily there's no Wide Lens in the game, otherwise it will become really too OVERPOWER.
- Most difficult battle: VS Lt Surge. I must say the game was much harder in the first half of the game. Lt Surge's battle was the most difficult with his electric pokemon and I don't got enough pokemon to battle against him. But in the second half of the game, somewhere starting from Erika, the game became much easier with much more pokemon.
- Pokemon you want to add to your team (can be exist or not exist in the game): Kilowattrel. The last place of my team (it's Mega-Pidgeot now) spent me some time to think of. To be honest, Kilowattrel was the best choice here which suited Pelipper Drizzle with her thunder. Well, there's no such pokemon in the game anyway…

I will start my next trip for my Game Mastery on Mega Moemon FireRed soon. I think I don't need to fill in the form again.

Next type is … Mono-Fire!!! I got no plan at all right now. But it may be a much harder run than mono-flying as there's less dual types for fire and it's difficult to get rid of all fire weakness.

=========================

And there's a few words to Explorer of Time about the Legendaries in the game.
- I found that the new version 1.4c changed Lance for having a Mega Charizard X instead of a Mega Latias. All the E4 and champion Green has got no Legendaries now in the game.
- However, I believed I've seen Latias somewhere in the game (not Mega evolution). It may come from some trainers in Victory Road but I'm not sure. I will confirm it later when I played the 2nd run.
- Anyway, there should be no methods to get a Legendary with BST 600+ legally before E4 (unless I've missed something).

 

[Reginald Cosmic]

Viewer Mail time again!

Professor Gary Oak of the University of Saffron writes: "I bet you can't beat a Flying Monotype of Pokémon Fire Red Version for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance family of systems!"

That's not a question, Professor, but we'll let the fans judge for themselves!

Name: Reginald Cosmic

Type: Flying

Game: Fire Red

Challenge Type: Single

Standard Mode: Groovy!

 

[StenirRPG]

Ultimate Grass Run
White / FIRST AND FINAL / Triple Threat

In this post (i.e., TL;DR)

Spoiler:

1.) Planning Ahead
2.) Gyms 1 and 2
3.) Gyms 3 and 4
4.) Gym 5
5.) Gyms 6 and 7
6.) Gym 8
9.) Endgame

The full read:

Spoiler:

-- Planning Ahead --
My choices in White are rather limited: start with Snivy, pick up a Pansage/Sewaddle/Petilil in Pinwheel Forest, pick up Maractus in Desert, Deerling and Foongus right before Chargestone Cave, and Ferroseed in Chargestone Cave. I opt to continue focusing on only six, so I'm not spreading my experience around more than necessary. That's helpful in Gen 5, given the experience changes.

My choices were Snivy, Pansage, Sewaddle, Petilil, Foongus, and Ferroseed. Something I decided to try this time was hold back evolutions to get moves earlier. Snivy was held back for Giga Drain (but honestly should have been held back for Wring Out); Giga Drain is a big jump from 34 to 44, and Wring out is 37 to 50. Pansage waited to replace Bite with Crunch at level 43. Petilil waited for Energy Ball at 35, Ferroseed for 43 to get Iron Head. Foongus and Sewaddle just evolved as normal. I debated on holding back for Spore (Foongus @50), but wasn't as needed as I thought it might be.

This is also going to be rather short on some gyms...simply because I let some specific Pokémon take the lead.

-- Gyms 1 and 2 --
These two gyms, I only have Snivy. Leaf Tornado is very helpful because it allows me to have a high chance (50%) of lowering accuracy. That's helpful for the first gym because it's putting me up against Pansear, and whatever I can do to avoid getting OHKO or 2HKO is helpful. I do have to reach 16 to get through it successfully, and I use the same tactics in Gym 2. I believe it was the move Retaliate that I didn't like much there, but having Leech Seed and Mega Drain on top of Leaf Tornado allows me to drain health while I have a lesser chance of getting hit along the way.

-- Gyms 3 and 4 --
Gyms 3 and 4 were kinda hard, to be honest. Since Gym 3, Castelia, is Bug, I decided I wanted to do a little bit of grinding in the Forest and also at the start of Route 4. I had to remind myself that you can fight a few trainers in Route 4, and the experience is better there, because you can fight Sandile which is easier to defeat. You do have to put up with Darumaka every so often, unfortunately. After that was done, I basically would do a trainer in the gym, go heal if needed, swap around, and keep going. Swadloon basically got me through this gym.

The gym in Nimbasa (#4) was not hard, at least, not the trainers. Fighting Elesa, however, was a little bit of a pain. Self-inflicted, because I could have evolved everything so far (Snivy only once, though). But, it is what it is, because I'm thinking less of the individual gyms and more of the "get ready for Elite Four".

-- Gym 5 --
It's ground. I'm grass. 'nuff said. Yummy experience. Since you can go up to the entrance of Chargestone, I went ahead and picked up Foongus and started working on leveling it. Hooray Exp Share.

-- Gym 6 and 7 --
What I thought were going to be the worst two gyms in the entire game. But, however you want to take it, Ferroseed was the savior. Steel type is nice here. Easily allows gym 7 to be bested since it's Ice, and made it super defensive for Gym 6 (Flying). Still rocking that Exp Share.

(Typo on the bottom - I had a Ferroseed in Icirrus Gym should be Ferrothorn and Ingrain should have been replaced by Iron Head. I didn't catch it before making the image and I've already cleared the sheet, to get ready for Sinnoh...but I did ensure it was correctly noted in the background. Sorry.)

-- Gym 8 --
I got through one of Iris's team with X-Scissor...then had to switch over to Ferrothorn. I basically spammed Metal Claw to win, because something weird happened. Some time I should look into the AI - because her final Pokémon Haxorus just spammed Dragon Dance three turns in a row without hitting me, giving me the free win.

-- Elite Four and Endgame--
Okay, I had more trouble with the Elite Four - I got there around level 45, and gave it a first try. No real luck, then went back and decided if they can be level 50, I can be level 50, too.

Both Shauntal and Caitlin go down to my Crunch/Feint Attack combo, X-Scissor also on Caitlin. Simisage with no items meant big damage against Marshall, and then Grimsley was just sort of brute force.

N was a little bit of a challenge, but it only took me one failed attempt to win. I basically stalled at the beginning with Fusion Flare, since it only has 5 PP. Then I spammed Dig as much as I could to break through. Zoroark came out and I spammed Leaf Tornado to lower accuracy, continually bringing Serperior back until I've got it down to -6 Accuracy. Then, it's all about returning my team to full strength before knocking it out. Carracosta was next, and I switched over to Ferrothorn to Iron Defense x3 and then Metal Claw (sadly only got one boost off it). Vanilluxe was next, so I said I'm over the hump of the battle, so Iron Head to knock it out. Klinklang next, and I try to do what damage I can, but it's not much before it knocks me out (my Iron Defense doesn't help since it's a special build). Dig, however, from Simisage, is enough to knock it out. From there, it's just spam whatever I want against Archeops and I'm through.

Ghetsis took some stupid luck for me to get through. I lost the first time, as Hydreigon is a pain due to Fire Blast. The second time, I managed to Swords Dance up Leavanny on Cofagrigus to +6 Attack, and then I just hoped I could do SOME damage to Hydreigon...and using X-Scissor knocked it out in one shot. At this point, I safely assumed I won: X-Scissor on Bisharp due to Dark, Leaf Blade against Seismitoad, Eelektross, and Bouffalant. And that's all of Gen 5.

Like, I am really feeling the experience change from Hoenn to Unova (remembering that I skipped Sinnoh, and I'd be on the new system anyways due to BDSP). Very draining. But, I'm looking forward to the next run.

Team Stats:

Spoiler:

Average Level over Time Breakdown (just to show what I'm continuing to work on, I plan to show after each Ultimate is complete):

Spoiler: